Friday, June 3, 2016

Think about all the ways which CS
Lewis wouldn't open a chapter. For example he wouldn't open a chapter
in the middle of something, and then explain himself afterwards.
Every author has his ways of opening a chapter, and if he doesn't, in
these an important author, there will be some reason for it. So what
are CS Lewis's ways of opening a chapter? One way is to open up the
chapter in something reasonable, all too reasonable, and then the
main character is knocked out, and he comes to listening to a
conversation, which to the main character seems like nonsense. For
example Out Of The Silent Planet. Very often he will throw the
characters write into magic, and then seeing them in a distant wood,
as if nothing were going wrong, it is just wood, and the characters
are the thing out of place, as if CS Lewis is saying that there is
something wrong with the main characters, not something wrong with
the universe. Even though the author and the reader know otherwise.

When you read on author which is
well known these tendencies are taken into account. For example other
authors will explain things against this backdrop, sometimes assuming
that you already know them, or they are explaining them to those who
do not know. Thus it is very much out of character for CS Lewis to
engage in picking in the middle, and then explain himself towards the
back and. It just isn't a CS Lewis thing to do, he will explain
things as he goes along, or he will introduce you to a character who
thinks he is in a situation that he knows, but doesn't. These are CS
Lewis's habits, and they differ markedly from taking up in the middle
and then explain afterwards. For example in The Horse And His Boy he
describes the character thinking that nothing is going to happen, and
then introduces himself to a talking horse who explains that this
view is wrong, and he is about to be sold to the visitor of the man
who he thought was his father.

In this case, if CS Lewis were
writing it, is probably would be how to gather the main characters,
which in this case are three, in to 1 group. That being the two
brothers, the lion and sisters, and the main army, but even that is
paired down, because the lion was paired with his sisters, and the
brothers were reunited in past chapters. In other words, to chapters
ago everything was diffuse, and CS Lewis began chopping the
characters in to smaller and smaller groups. And now he is at the
endpoint, where he just needs to regroup three individuals. Which he
will now do, a rather I will now do in the manner of CS Lewis. So in
a chapter of CS Lewis, that would be what he did.

For example, he might bring the
lion and the sisters over a hill, remarking on how small their forces
were, and then the lion would take charge, and the two brothers would
arrive shortly there afterwards. And there would be a planning
session before the real development would occur. That real
development would of course be a character from the opposite side,
demanding that they surrender, or some such. Of course this being CS
Lewis, there would be almost no question as to accepting this. Many
authors would meekly accept the course of surrender, but not CS
Lewis.

In this case, there would be
something about the main oppositional character which would show,
even if only in retrospect, the position that the main opposition
character is in. for example if the main oppositional character is
haughty, that would be noted. In this case, the cruel witch would be
shown as being unutterably willing to crush the four characters, and
would not even notice it. But subsidiariary, it would be shown that
she has become dominated by her crueler self. Actually CS Lewis
showed this early, but my decision was to expose it late. It was
better theater that way.

So if you will imagine to
characters, one a Minotaur, and one a cheetah common up through the
thicket, which remember goes downward into the main plain, where the
witch was with her army. The Minotaur spoke:

“I have an announcement from the
Queen.”

At this point one of the main
characters would note that “queen” was an inappropriate name for
her, but would be told there was time to correct that after the
battle. At which point the lion, or whoever was in charge, would ask
what the commencement was.

“Speak and I will listen.”
Commended the lion. As I said before, I don't like using all of the
ways of adding “commented” or “said”, it's very much out of
the past, and others which use it really have to look at their
command of English. But that is the way CS Lewis wrote, and so I will
honor that - though I would not do it in my own writing.

“The queen will disperse the
Army, if the four traitor are handed over to her.” In short she
wants the humans, because without them there is very little reason to
fear anything else..

“She had her chance, and she
using deep magic, failed to do so. She does not realize, that I am
more powerful than she could imagine.” Then with a roar the lion
chased the two, and established his hold over the battlefield. Then
the Lion turned to Peter: “If you can hold the which and her
forces, I will free the stone people, and that will and her reign -
but if you fail to do so, she will easily defeat you and then me in
turn.”

“I will hold the field, count on
it.” Peter was loyal and brave, and meant what he said - he meant.

“And one more thing, your little
brother has to step up.” Said the lion.

Just then Eddie said: “I have a
lot of shame to bear, but I will start here.” You will live that
even in honor of CS Lewis, I don't use parentheses to explain things,
though that was the fashion once upon a time. CS Lewis did it about
once every two chapters, or so.

So the young men - for that is
what Peter and Eddie had become - marched their way down in to the
Queens area - with its monsters, set amidst stone figures, to take
away her vision of what would be happening at her base. Because that
was indeed the plan: they would be the bait, while the lion and the
young women would fetch reinforcements. Even though there
reinforcements were stone.

The acute problem was that in the
woods, they were easily hidden, but now in the open, they were
painfully aware that if the witch could see them, it would not be
pleasant. Thus the young man had to distract them as best they could.

The lion, the two young women, and
a few followers moved at right angles to the Army, and would drop off
in to the darkness before the Army was going to depart. The lion had
a plan, a knew that a tiny gully down the side of the escarpment that
the Army had encamped on, would not visible from the Queen's eye, and
thus would provide them with cover until the battle would commence.
Then they would sneak around and go forth to rescue the men at the
Queen's base.

It was only a few minutes, and they
could not see their own army, or the Queen's. They were invisible,
and less they were discovered by a wandering flying manticore, or
some such. They snuck down the escarpment, and were free to do what
they had to do. The way was tiny, and narrow, and to each side there
were hills that kept them covered.

“Are we going to make it?”
Asked Lucy.

“The hills will provide some
cover, but we will have to be on guard until we have gotten around to
it base. She has pulled up all of her monsters and other things, so
there should be little to none defending her castle.”

“What will do at that point?”
said Sandra.

“The witch does not destroy, only
freezes them in place. I will unfreeze.”

“Like Thomas?”

“I can on freeze him, yes. But
are you sure you want?” asked the lion.

“I think he will be welcome in
our family.” said Lucy.

“Who are you talking about?”
asked Sandra.

“She thinks that a dear friend
will be glad to see her again, after he has been unfrozen. And I
agree with her, once he saw the enemy, the could not do that.” Said
the Lion.

Sandra nodded. Just then they
reached a tiny wood, in which was the Queen's lair. Around it was a
low slung wall, and inside a could not see anyone to defend it. The
lion was right: the Queen had thrown all of her defense in to
attacking, thus while she looked arrogant, inside she was afraid,
because everything was going wrong. Her failure to kill the lion on
the stone table was a sign, and she knew that that was the end of
her. But she was going to fight to the bitter end, and if she could
kill even one of the young men, she might just save the day. It was
all she had left.

Aslan then roared and blew down
the gate, and stately moved in to the inner sanctum. There were
dozens of frozen creatures, but he knew which one he was going to
select: a tall, in fact very tall, giant. Then he blew on him gently,
and from his breath, slowly, it became flesh, when once it was stone.

The giant roared as if he were
still in combat with witch, but then realized that that was not the
case.

“Where am I?” He glanced
around.

“I am here, giant. And I am your king,
Aslan.”

The giant looked around at head level,
and then looked down. He immediately bowed to Aslan.

“I want you to break down the inner
gates, so that I can free everyone.”

With this the giant made a mighty
swing with his ax. And with it came tumbling down the bricks and
stones.

Then the three of them, that is
the lion and the two young women, went around the villa and proceeded
to set all of the frozen creatures free. And in a hidden doorway
there was Thomas, and Lucy looked at Aslan, and begged with her eyes
to release him. So Aslan breve on him, and their key stood, at first
believing that he would turn to stone, and then caught in the web of
believing that he would be stoned forever. Because that is the trap:
of believing that you are stoned forever, but there is just enough
awareness that you will be stoned, until the end of the world. It was
a truly nasty fate.

Then after He had liberated all of
the creatures, many of them were loyal and tell being stoned
themselves, the lion said to them in the backdrop of the castle: “We
will have two get back to the battle. Because Peter and friends will
not hold out for very long. They were only running a diversion.”

So the creatures picked up the
pace, determined to save the Army from its fate. There was a huge
throng of them, and they were quite angry indeed. Instead of going
around, they went down the middle. And they arrived at the
battlefield, where it looked as if the Queen would win.